Books

Evening Poetry, May 7

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Here is a children’s poem to read to the little ones in your life and for the child in you.

The Spring Wind

by Charlotte Zolotow

The summer wind

is soft and sweet

the winter wind is strong

the autumn wind is mischievous

and sweeps the leaves along.

The wind I love the best

comes gently after rain

smelling of spring and growing things

brushing the world with feathery wings

while everything glistens, and everything sings

in the spring wind

after the rain.

You can find this poem in Read-Aloud Rhymes For The Very Young selected by Jack Prelutsky, illustrated by Marc Brown. This book will always be special to me because it was the first book given to me by a dear friend, Mary Church, right after the birth of my son. She brought it to the hospital. The one I have is here, but as it’s an older edition, you may have to buy it used.

Charlotte Zolotow, the author of this poem, wrote children’s books favorited by my kids, including The Storm Book and Over and Over. I am going to begin writing about kid lit soon, as I have many books that I enjoyed as a child and ones that my kids enjoyed when they were little as well.

Evening Poetry, May 6

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The Book of a Monastic Life: I,2

by Rainer Maria Rilke

I live my life in widening circles

that reach out across the world.

I may not complete this last one

but I give myself to it.

I circle around God, around the primordial tower.

I’ve been circling for thousands of years

and I still don’t know: am I a falcon,

a storm, or a great song?

You can find this poem and more in Rilke’s Book of Hours: Love Poems to God, translated by Anita Barrows and Joanna Macy.

Evening Poetry, May 5

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How to Be a Poet

by Wendell Berry


Make a place to sit down.   
Sit down. Be quiet.   
You must depend upon   
affection, reading, knowledge,   
skill—more of each   
than you have—inspiration,   
work, growing older, patience,   
for patience joins time   
to eternity. Any readers   
who like your poems,   
doubt their judgment.   

Breathe with unconditional breath   
the unconditioned air.   
Shun electric wire.   
Communicate slowly. Live   
a three-dimensioned life;   
stay away from screens.   
Stay away from anything   
that obscures the place it is in.   
There are no unsacred places;   
there are only sacred places   
and desecrated places.   

Accept what comes from silence.   
Make the best you can of it.   
Of the little words that come   
out of the silence, like prayers   
prayed back to the one who prays,   
make a poem that does not disturb   
the silence from which it came.

You can find this poem at the Poetry Foundation and in the collection Given: Poems.

Evening Poetry, May 4

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Happiness

by Jane Kenyon

There’s just no accounting for happiness,
or the way it turns up like a prodigal
who comes back to the dust at your feet
having squandered a fortune far away.

And how can you not forgive?
You make a feast in honor of what
was lost, and take from its place the finest
garment, which you saved for an occasion
you could not imagine, and you weep night and day
to know that you were not abandoned,
that happiness saved its most extreme form
for you alone.

No, happiness is the uncle you never
knew about, who flies a single-engine plane
onto the grassy landing strip, hitchhikes
into town, and inquires at every door
until he finds you asleep midafternoon
as you so often are during the unmerciful
hours of your despair.

It comes to the monk in his cell.
It comes to the woman sweeping the street
with a birch broom, to the child
whose mother has passed out from drink.
It comes to the lover, to the dog chewing
a sock, to the pusher, to the basketmaker,
and to the clerk stacking cans of carrots
in the night.
                     It even comes to the boulder
in the perpetual shade of pine barrens,
to rain falling on the open sea,
to the wineglass, weary of holding wine.

You can find this poem at the Poetry Foundation and in the collection Otherwise.

Evening Poetry, May 3

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I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud

by William Wordsworth

I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o’er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the milky way,
They stretched in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

The waves beside them danced; but they
Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:
A poet could not but be gay,
In such a jocund company:
I gazed—and gazed—but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought:

For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.

You can find this poem and more in this collection.


Evening Poetry, May 2

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I’ve decided to continue with a poem each evening simply because I wish to share the power and beauty of poetry with whomever visits this blog.

Here is a poem written by my dear friend, Laurie Petrisin. Laurie is a gifted artist and writer. You can view and purchase her work on her art website here,her jewelry website here or on Etsy.

Hiding

Will you hide your whole life?

Your whole existence?

Is life not yours

To do with what you will?

Bad things happen

It’s not a clear path

Or a smooth ride

And you’re not perfect

But don’t sentence yourself

To victim status

You’re more than that

Fight!

Let out the primitive roar

The unpolished You

That the world tries

To sand away

Little by little

Bit by bit

Until you disappear

You won’t find yourself

By hiding

Evening Poetry, May 1

KimLeave a comment

I’ve decided to continue with a poem each evening simply because I wish to share the power and beauty of poetry with whomever visits this blog.

Now I Become Myself

by May Sarton

Now I become myself. It’s taken

Time, many years and places;

I have been dissolved and shaken,

Worn other people’s faces,

Run madly, as if Time were there,

Terribly old, crying a warning,

“Hurry, you will be dead before–“

(What? Before you reach the morning?

Or the end of the poem is clear?

Or love safe in the walled city?)

Now to stand still, to be here,

Feel my own weight and density!

The black shadow on the paper

Is my hand; the shadow of a word

As thought shapes the shaper

Falls heavy on the page, is heard.

All fuses now, falls into place

From wish to action, word to silence,

My work, my love, my time, my face

Gathered into one intense

Gesture of growing like a plant.

As slowly as the ripening fruit

Fertile, detached, and always spent,

Falls but does not exhaust the root,

So all the poem is, can give,

Grows in me to become the song,

Made so and rooted so by love.

Now there is time and Time is young.

O, in this single hour I live

All of myself and do not move.

I, the pursued, who madly ran,

Stand still, stand still, and stop the sun!

You can find this poem in Collected Poems.

Evening Poetry, April 30

KimLeave a comment

In honor of National Poetry Month, and Mary Oliver, our beloved national poet who passed away in January, I will be posting one of her poems each evening in April. I am hoping to follow in the footsteps of Sarah Clarkson and read a poem on Instagram Live in the evenings as well…Follow me on Instagram to tune in.

Wild Geese

You do not have to be good.

You do not have to walk on your knees

for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.

You only have to let the soft animal of your body

love what it loves.

Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.

Meanwhile the world goes on.

Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain

are moving across the landscapes,

over the praises and the deep trees,

the mountains and the rivers.

Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,

are heading home again.

Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,

the world offers itself to your imagination,

calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting–

over and over announcing your place

in the family of things.

This poem can be found in the collection Dream Work.

Evening Poetry, April 29

KimLeave a comment

In honor of National Poetry Month, and Mary Oliver, our beloved national poet who passed away in January, I will be posting one of her poems each evening in April. I am hoping to follow in the footsteps of Sarah Clarkson and read a poem on Instagram Live in the evenings as well…Follow me on Instagram to tune in.

Milkweed

the milkweed now with their many pods are standing

like a country of dry women.

The wind lifts their flat leaves and drops them.

This is not kind, but they retain a certain crisp glamour;

moreover, it’s easy to believe

each one was once young and delicate, also

frightened; also capable

of a certain amount of rough joy.

I wish you would walk with me out into the world.

I wish you could see what has to happen, how

each one crackles like a blessing

over its thin children as they rush away.

This poem can be found in the collection Dream Work.

Evening Poetry, April 28

KimLeave a comment

In honor of National Poetry Month, and Mary Oliver, our beloved national poet who passed away in January, I will be posting one of her poems each evening in April. I am hoping to follow in the footsteps of Sarah Clarkson and read a poem on Instagram Live in the evenings as well…Follow me on Instagram to tune in.

Why I Wake Early

Hello, sun in my face.

Hello, you who make the morning

and spread it over the fields

and into the faces of the tulips

and the nodding morning glories,

and into the windows of, even, the

miserable and the crotchety–

best preacher that ever was,

dear star, that just happens

to be where you are in the universe

to keep us from ever-darkness,

to ease us with warm touching,

to hold us in the great hands of light–

good morning, good morning, good morning.

Watch , now, how I start the day

in happiness, in kindness.

This poem can be found in the collection Why I Wake Early.